BULL PASS, TX—Progressive pastor Lucas North of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church spent almost every word of his twenty-minute sermon Sunday morning apologizing for the passage he had chosen to preach on, audience members confirmed.

Reverend North reportedly preached on Jesus’ teachings about His Second Coming and the story of the wicked servant at the end of the 24th chapter of the gospel of Matthew.

“I know Jesus said some pretty tough things in this passage here,” North began gently. “I just want to start out by saying I’m so sorry for the unfortunate choice of words used in these passages of Scripture. Things like ‘flood,’ ‘wicked,’ ‘cut him into pieces,’ and ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ have no place in civilized society.”

North then continued to apologize profusely to his congregation for the “harsh language” used by the Savior throughout the text for the next twenty minutes.

“Just to wrap things up here,” North said as he finished up his sermon in which he’d done nothing but say he was sorry for what the Bible said, “I just want to reiterate to you how deeply sorry I am that you had to hear all that.”